


The obstacles

by AlexxaSick



Series: 10 authors x 10 Pairings Homage [1]
Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mental Disintegration, Mindfuck, mind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-02
Updated: 2011-08-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 15:51:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/663775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexxaSick/pseuds/AlexxaSick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>The author for the original story (with the same name) is Eloy Urroz, For more read super long ass note at the end</p>
    </blockquote>





	The obstacles

**Author's Note:**

> The author for the original story (with the same name) is Eloy Urroz, For more read super long ass note at the end

**1**

  
Parents were long gone. Not deceased, just retired. They decided to move to Okinawa when Sho was about to finish high school. And since Satoshi was already in the workforce, their parents decided to leave. They were both left behind at their 2LDK flat to look after each other. Trouble began, when Sho started attending Keio University, as their place was on the other side of town. He didn’t want to leave the scattered brain of his brother alone.

Satoshi was born 5 years before him. It should have been the other way round, but Sho liked to take care of his brother. Sho was sure that, if Satoshi was left alone during one of his creative spells he would just starve to death cloistered in his room (formerly their parents’ room).

His brother had insisted for him to get a place near campus. Sho, on the other hand, was concerned, so he didn’t. By the end of his second semester he was sleep-deprived, stressed out of his brains, and moody. Satoshi told him that he could take care of himself. Sho merely scoffed in response. The argument that followed was upsetting. Especially, when Sho let him know that he seriously doubted his ability to do so. If Satoshi was mad, he didn’t show it. A few days later he dropped the bomb: He wanted his boyfriend to move in.

Sho was insanely angry with his brother. Not because he was a fag. He didn’t care about that. He had been one too, especially when it had to do with their neighbor’s eldest. What he was really, really mad about was that Satoshi had never uttered a word about it. He had no idea. He moved out that same afternoon. He did it without an actual plan about what he was going to do. He ended up living on his friends’ kindness for the next couple of months. He refused to talk to his brother and he only got a place to live after his parents intervened.

He went home to retrieve his stuff. Satoshi made it clear then that he didn’t want him to move out. His brother was sorry to have hidden his relationship from him. Sho forgave him in an instant. Toma, Satoshi’s boyfriend, was taking good care of his brother. It made him feel relieved and he was able to concentrate on school again.

An afternoon the younger brother came back without notice, just to retrieve his notebook, the one he was writing his novel in. He had hidden it behind the drawers in his closet. That was when he discovered the peephole.

The hole was a defect in the wooden wall that separated his closet from Satoshi’s (formerly their parents’). He looked through it to find his brother’s closet door open and the unobstructed view to something he certainly shouldn’t have been watching. He couldn’t help himself though, pressing his forehead to the cold wood, he saw Toma finger his brother. He pulled away when it was clear that they were going to have intercourse, like right now. He collected his notebook and shot out of the apartment as quietly as he could.

 

 

**2**

  
Toma passed away a Wednesday afternoon. It was my last semester from college; just a couple of months short from finishing classes and just being left with my thesis assignment. I got a call from nii-chan’s workplace. His boss asked me to pick him up. They didn’t explain anything. I was worried. I borrowed my friend’s van to look for my brother. He was a wreck. He could barely breathe between his sobs. I took him home. Though _now_ I think it was a bad Idea.

Later I found out how it happened. Not from Satoshi though. Toma was eating at an oden stand when a car crashed into it killing Toma, the stand owner and another costumer on the spot and injuring another three people passing by. The guy driving the car wasn’t drunk nor drugged, not even tired. He was a perfectly healthy 30 year old who happened to have an aneurism that ruptured killing him in just a few seconds.

I moved back in with Nii-chan without a second thought. I had cleared almost all the credits I needed and I didn’t have to be at school as much as before. Even if my thesis took most of my time, I still could take care of him.

The first month he barely left the room. I fed him and forced him to take bath. Nii-chan mostly cried, I don’t think he even knew he was crying until I wiped his face clean with some tissue. Toma’s parents came and took almost everything that their son owned. I had to struggle with them to let them leave behind some stuff for Satoshi. I put the few items of clothing and mementos I could salvage inside a duffel bag and stashed it under the bed.

One day I came back from college to find nii-chan trying to burn some sketches on the kitchen sink. When I stopped him, I realized they were all Toma’s. I told him he should be more careful, that he should treasure them.

“What do you know?” He said in a hard voice that I had never heard before, and have never heard since then. “You too burn those… those letters.” I wanted to say something. Anything. Just to defend myself. How did he even know about it? I didn’t push it any further. I didn’t want him asking questions or having to explain anything, even though he seemed to have a pretty good idea about it.

“Toma is more precious.” I said instead. Nii-chan cried some more.

 

 

**3**

  
The first few months after Toma’s demise, all Satoshi did was cry. Sho was concerned. However, he didn’t want to meddle in his brother’s mourning, telling himself that _People did have their own ways to deal with pain_.

Sho graduated a couple of months later. By then, Satoshi was slowly taking few steady steps to assuming control of his life again. Almost six months later, he got a new part time job. It paid less than his previous job. But it was okay, since the younger brother got a good job offer upon the completion of his degree.

He used the peephole during that time, to give his brother some space (the one he found years ago) to know what was going on with Satoshi. At first he watched him cry himself to sleep, soon his brother started to develop a certain ritual. Something that seemed choreographed.  
A year had passed before they even knew it. Things had sneakily started to slide into a routine too.

A typical evening in the Sakurai brothers household involved Sho arriving home around 6. Satoshi would be back from work a couple of hours earlier. When the younger brother arrived, he usually would be either painting in the living room area (which he had claimed as his studio and Sho didn’t have the heart to tell him not to); or watching the only TV in the house (which Satoshi conveniently moved to his own room). When the older brother heard the younger one go into the shower he’d prepare dinner for the two of them. After his bath Sho would walk to the kitchen and they’d have their meal together, talking about their day. Lately Satoshi had been able to laugh again, and Sho felt a little relieved.

After dinner Sho would go to his room and complete the work he had brought home, if he had brought any. When he didn’t have work to do he would take out the novel he had been writing for the last few years and work on it for a little while. Sometimes, when he missed him, he would work on the poems and letters he had written to ‘that’ person.

He’d basically pass time until his brother went to his room. Sho would kneel on his closet and put his forehead to the wooden wall, he trained his eye on the hole he had widened one morning Satoshi had gone fishing. Satoshi usually took his bath after supper (unless he had been fishing, in this case he would have his bath before Sho arrived home). His brother would walk to his room with a towel around his waist. Then he’d open the closet to grab a clean pair of sweatpants. He rarely used to wear a top to sleep. Sho knew he wouldn’t close the door afterwards. Satoshi would take his laptop and wait for it to boot as he prepared the clothes he’d wear in the morning. Then the older brother would spend a lot of time staring at the screen only moving to scroll down the page.

The younger brother’s curiosity had won over him. He snooped into Satoshi’s computer one morning, when he left early to go fishing. It turned out that before Toma had moved in he had been studying abroad. He wrote emails to his brother daily, often more than once a day. He tried to read one of them, but when it opened he saw Toma’s smiling face as he stared at the camera his arms around some (equally happy) foreigners. Sho couldn’t read further. He turned off the machine and left it where his brother had left it before.

When the emails had gotten to Satoshi enough to make him tear up, he’d put the PC away and kneel in front of the bed. From beneath the bed he’d take out the duffel bag that contained a few things he had left of his beloved. Once it was out, he’d begin pulling out the items one by one. Smelling them. Inhaling deeply the scent of the collar from that ragged shirt, the armpit, the buttons…He’d start slowly and deeply, but the nose gets used to smells too quickly and he’d become more desperate to get that smell back (a smell Sho couldn’t get, he had tried). Satoshi always ended on the floor sobbing uncontrollably albeit quietly.

When his older brother went still, it was his cue to pull away from the closet. He knew it was creepy and just plain wrong doing this, but he couldn’t help it. He told himself that he did it out of concern and love. Truth was deep down in his soul it turned out only some kind of morbid fascination.

 

**  
4**

  
My father liked to tell the story about the day they first brought me home. _When you were born, Satoshi was dying to meet you_ he’d say.

Apparently Satoshi, who was only five at the time, threw a tantrum the day I was born because he wasn’t allowed in the hospital, and since I was born a month early I couldn’t be taken home right away. They said he cried a lot those four days they kept me in the hospital.

The day my parents brought me home, he made Rie-basan do his hair perfectly (it amuses her, even to this day). And he insisted on wearing his holiday best: a hand-me-down yukata. He didn’t have much time to prepare, since my parents didn’t know when I’d be permitted to leave. So Satoshi was being bratty in his desperation for our first meeting to turn out good. That’s what Rie-basan says.

He sat on the edge of the genkan as he waited. He even drove Rie-basan away when she tried to make him go to the living room and watch some cartoons while he waited. Even though Kaibutsu-kun was being aired, he just stayed put. Satoshi immediately sat in a seiza pose when he heard the lock turn.

_We laughed so hard when we saw the little brat bowing low to the floor as we took off our shoes._ My father used to say, but Satoshi just remained solemn and poker-faced, seemingly annoyed by what the adults found so funny.

He only lifted his head when my mom kneeled in front of him and lowered me to let him see me. He introduced himself in a deadpan voice –ceremoniously- the same way mom had taught him to introduce himself to my father’s boss. This never failed to make my father laugh as he remembered it. Satoshi nii-chan says he doesn’t remember any of that, but I think he’s just embarrassed.

There were a couple of pictures of that incident. The one I remember the most is one where my mom was seated on the sofa next to Rie-baasan, she was holding me in a way my sleeping face was captured by the camera. Satoshi was standing in front with a serious face. My father must have taken that picture, since he wasn’t in it.

 

 

 

**5**

  
Sho was writing a novel. He had started writing sometime during his last year of high school. He preferred writing in a notebook than typing out on a computer, because somehow it seemed to work easier that way. He liked to write, and he wanted to, eventually, start writing articles for the paper he was working for, though right now he just analyzed data for real writers.  
He had begun writing long ago though, a lot. Especially about _him_. He wrote and he let the poems or whatever cool down before revising them, perfecting them… and when they were flawless, he’d burn them in hopes that his feelings for him would consume as the paper they were written on.

Aiba Masaki was the eldest son of the Sakurai household’s neighbors. The Aibas owned a restaurant a few blocks down the street. Masaki and Sho were childhood friends. They went to school together, until high school when they had to part ways as Sho went to an elite school, and Aiba went a regular one. Even then his neighbor would wait for Sho by the station, and walk home with him.

Sho liked to think Masaki was too naïve. That he lacked the malice to know why he stayed to help at the restaurant in the summers, or why he had put up with his stupid experiments when no one else would. Why he ended up doing his homework, even if they weren’t in the same school anymore. Or even why when they were drunk… Sho consciously fooled himself into believing that his neighbor was unaware of it all.

They had grown up together, but Sho couldn’t pinpoint the moment he started to feel that way about him. Though sometimes he felt it had always existed; since the time they were little brats running around with their knees covered in dirt.

That he had been in love with him during all the experiments that almost burnt the Aibas’ restaurant. He always felt the same about Aiba in spite of his recurring allergies. He loved Masaki even though his snot hung from his nose after a fit of laughter, and that was the reason why Sho always carried (even now) some tissue in his pocket, because Masaki always forgot or ran out. Lately, after Sho came back from college, Aiba had been a little more self-conscious. But back then he would lean into his hand and let him clean his nose, blowing into the tissue. That feeling grew even before they discovered porn and that they could do more with their cocks than pee.

He once saw this movie about a serial killer, in which, someone said that _we begin by coveting what we see every day_. He didn’t want to kill him of course, but, he could reach that point, was exactly what happened to him in relation to Aiba-chan. Sho usually tried to put away the thoughts about him, and he was often successful. It was just that… Aiba-chan was easy to love, just about every person they’ve ever met did. And that was heartbreak number one for Sho; the way Aiba Masaki had always been surrounded by people who liked him. Aiba-chan had always had several people to choose from as his partners, and from the few people he actually dated, none were male.

People at school talked about Sho’s crush. Satoshi definitely knew about it… yet Sho hardly spoke about it. When he did talk about it, he never named the person he loved. Somehow it still seemed that he had screamed to the whole neighborhood that he was head over heels in love with Aiba Masaki. He had known Aiba had talked about it but he never named him either. But all the people they knew were able to put two and two together.

It wasn’t all platonic. Not as much as everybody thought. It usually ceased to be platonic once Aiba-chan had gulped a couple of beers and solitude filled in his mind. That, Sho was confident, nobody knew about.

However, apart from those few minutes that Aiba-chan lost his inhibitions, he acted as if he didn’t know, as if it was all the same. Sho followed his cue, dating, making out and eventually fucking girls.

When Sho moved out, he stopped seeing Aiba-chan. He thought he was over that high school crush. He dated. He dated girls, he dated guys. He learned to care about them. He knew, however, it didn’t feel the same, like it had been with Aiba-chan.

Once he returned home the things, no, the feelings had remained pretty much the same. When Aiba-chan welcomed him and offered his condolences to Satoshi, the love was pretty much as passionate as the day he left. They had kissed that night, hidden in an alley behind the Aiba family restaurant. Even though they weren’t drunk, they had kissed. It had been a long and ravenous make out session. Yet, at the end Aiba-chan had run away when they heard steps approaching. Next morning it was as if nothing had changed.

 

 

**6**

  
It started the morning of my day off. It was late morning and this was the only time of the week I allowed myself to revel in my unrequited love. To wallow in it. Sometimes I just let my brain draw in the profound memories of the last time we made out. Re-live the one and only time we dry humped until he came while I jerked off. I did this to be able to take him out of my mind for the rest of the day.  
That particular day I had been planning on hanging out in the Aiba’s restaurant. Not right now, it was too early. Aiba-chan must have been running errands for his parents.

It began after I went to take a leak. I brushed my teeth while examining my disheveled hair in the mirror reflection on the cabinet above the sink. This was when I first felt it, when the thin ray of light filtering from the bathroom’s window reflected on the mirror and I felt an agonizing throb in my head.  
I ignored the pain, thinking I had probably overslept and after a coffee and some breakfast I’d feel better.

From the living room I could hear Haruka cleaning. She was the woman we paid to help us prevent the house from turning into a testosterone-filled pigpen. Haruka-san came thrice a week and cleaned the place, me and nii-chan often did the dishes and stuff, but she cleaned everything well, including the paint stains on nii-chan’s study.

She screamed when she saw me walk out the bathroom, just a towel wrapped around my waist. Her scream pierced through my temple and I tried to smile at her. “Sorry Sakurai-san, I didn’t know you were in.” She apologized in a monotone, bowing slightly. “Should I fix you some breakfast?” Her subservient attitude crisped my nerves, I had never asked her to do something like that, I didn’t understand why she was offering now.

“No thanks, please don’t let me bother you.” I said as I rushed to my room to get dressed. I could feel her eyes on me. Not that I wasn’t used to getting stared at. Especially after I started to go to the gym with precisely that purpose, but she made me feel dirty even though I just had a shower.

“Are you feeling well, Sakurai-san?” I heard her ask and I wished that she would stop talking to me.  
“I’ve just got a slight headache; don’t worry about me, Haruka-san”

After getting dressed, the headache worsened a little so I decided against delaying my breakfast any longer. Walking directly to the kitchen, I started to prepare a couple of scrambled eggs and toast.

I took everything to nii-chan’s room and started eating while watching TV. I’d do anything to get away from that annoying gaze. There was a movie on TV; a thriller about a boy who wanted to kill his father with that idol who was in every magazine cover lately. My headache got worse and I couldn’t even finish breakfast. I fell asleep. The last thing I remember seeing was the movie, the scene where he’s killing his father, and his father’s feet trembled on the futon as he was being electrocuted.  
Nii-chan was anxious. I could see it on his face as he shook me awake. The tray and the cold breakfast weren’t on the bed next to me anymore. The lights were turned on and it made everything seem unreal. My older brother seemed touched by an angel… or something. He had this kind of aura around him. I wondered briefly if it was a dream and what would happen next.

“Sho-chan, c’mon, wake up.” Satoshi-nii said in that soothing voice of his. And then someone else tugged me to make me sit. Those weren’t my brother’s hands, weren’t the artsy delicate hands I knew so well. I tried to turn to see who was. I found another man, he was also touched by an angel. At first I thought I recognized him, and then I knew I did. He was one of Toma’s friends. I hadn’t seen him in a while. I knew he came though, even after Toma’s departure. His name was Nishikido Ryo. “ _Nishikido-sensei_ ” As Satoshi would remind me every time I just called him _Nishikido_.

This guy…it was hard to believe that he was a doctor, but indeed he was. Haruka-san must have blabbed to nii-chan about my headache.

“Come on, Sho-chan.” This wasn’t nii-chan’s voice either, and I was bothered by the familiarity in which he addressed me. We have met a couple of times when he was leaving or came to pick my older brother up to take him drinking. Why was he talking to me with that faked fondness? It didn’t sound fake, but it had to be, right? He barely knew me. “At least try…” he said, with that hint of tenderness in his voice and actions. “ Help me Satoshi-kun.” I could feel his minty breath on my face, and it revolted my stomach. It wasn’t unpleasant but it made me want to puke like nothing else had done ever before.

With the help of the other two propped up on the bed, my back falling heavy against some pillows. Nishikido (-sensei) put his stethoscope to my chest, checked my blood pressure, the sugar level in my blood, my pupils, every part of me. He explained to nii-chan what he was doing and why every step of the way. Louder than he should have. His voice made my head rumble, like a massive landslide occurring continuously in my brain. It wasn’t his fault, he had seemed like he was perpetually biologically unable to control the volume of his voice.

“Where does it hurt, Sho-chan?” It took me a little while to realize he was talking to me. I tried talking but my voice refused to rise so I just lifted my hand and signaled vaguely at my temple. “Is it just one side?” I nodded. “Do the lights hurt? Do sounds hurt?” Yes, no, I answer. “Is he under stress?” He turned to talk to nii-chan and it pisses me off even more to be treated like I was incompetent.

“I think he’s taking too much on his plate at work…” I was so not doing that. I was only doing what was expected of me. It was infuriating that I couldn’t defend myself. “Though… he’s always been like that. Really hard working, my little brother.”Nii-chan put his warm hand on my shoulder and looked directly at me with fondness. It made me feel embarrassed.

“Has something different happened lately?” Nishikido (-sensei) asked putting away his instruments.  
“I think, a few weeks ago, he got dumped by the person he loves.” There was no hesitation in nii-chan’s words. I couldn’t bring myself to shake my head in negation; it felt like a lead ball rolling inside. They didn’t see me anyways.

“I think is a migraine, it should be better in a couple of days. If it isn’t please call me again and we’ll carry out some tests…” Nishikido (-sensei) closed his medical case and stood up, ready to leave. “Do you want me to help you move him to his room, Satoshi-kun?” Nii-chan nodded and I felt even angrier than before about the affectionate tone he used while saying my brother’s name.

While I was held between the two men, I could smell Nishikido (-sensei)’s lotion, and it made me sick, my stomach lurched and retched. I didn’t throw up. I was proud of myself since I hung on until they dressed me in my jammies and tucked me in bed.

“You have to sleep a lot,” Nishikido (-sensei) instructed, and proceeded to explain why, but I was far too gone to care. He also told nii-chan a couple of recommendations, but I didn’t hear them. He looked at me, and then at the door. The last bit of Nishikido (-sensei) I saw through my half-closed door was his hand against my brother’s lower back. He was fondling him as he guided him out of my room.

I heard their muffled talk, voices seeping through the walls, through the door, through the chinks of my skull, piercing my brain. Nishikido (-sensei) was making my brother giggle at the same time he gave him another bunch of directions about cold compresses and darkness. I didn’t like the fake concern in his speech; it was like he was desperately trying to get on my brother’s good side.

I hated Nishikido (-sensei) right then. I hated him for doing what he was doing to his late friend (hitting on his lover, that is). I hated him as I hated the the Aiba’s eldest son’s selfless (fake, but selfless) manner of avoiding my feelings for him. Just as much as I hated the fact that one day my brother was going to be over Toma and their love would die…

I felt another blade slide to my head, and I realized this was a pain born out of hatred; that my fragile biology couldn’t take hate and that I must love. Love Nishikido’s lotion and minty breath. Love the fact that brother was falling out of love. Love the dis-belonging attitude in which Aiba-chan kissed me. Love my peers. Love everyone for the sake and wellbeing of all migraines and all headaches in the world.

 

 

**7**

  
The door opened slowly. Sho probably wouldn’t have heard it if his headache wasn’t magnifying with every sound around him. The vacuum cleaner’s noise came from the living room where Haruka was probably cleaning.

But if she was cleaning the living room and Satoshi was out on a fishing trip with a new pal, who would be opening his door? He snapped his eyes open to see the long figure come in and close the door quickly behind him.

“Sho-chan, Are you awake?” he whispered. Sho didn’t react. He couldn’t believe Aiba-chan was in his room. It had been a year since he had been in his room, a year before he left for college. He couldn’t perceive his face in the dark, and he was glad he didn’t turn the on lights. Even though the headache was almost gone, it still didn’t feel great.

He walked cautiously in the dark and sat on the bed. Sho started to feel uncomfortable. He hadn’t taken a bath since it all started a couple of days ago. Maybe it was even more days. Being in the dark had screwed up his sense of time.

He sat on the bed. In the faint light coming from the crevices which Sho hadn’t been aware of before this, he could perceive Aiba leaning over him and was able to recognize the curves of his face.

“Are you awake?” he repeated. Sho’s eyes were wide open. Aiba probably wasn’t accustomed to the dark yet. He reached forward and touched his face. Sho nodded feeling the clammy fingers trace his cheekbone. “Haruka-chan gave me a pill for you.” he said, reaching into his pocket producing a tablet strip and a bottle of water. “Sit up, so you can take it.”

Sho held onto Aiba more than he should have as he was being helped to sit up against the headboard.

“I’ve always told you, you worry too much, Sho-chan.” He said in a gentle voice as he used his teeth to free the pill from its packaging. The little capsule jumped out and he started to touch around, trying to find it.

“Just turn on the light, Aiba-kun.” Sho didn’t mean to snap. Aiba finally was paying attention to him and he had reacted this way. He wanted to kick himself.

“Won’t it hurt you, Sho-chan?” He said already walking towards the light switch.

“Not if you only turn on the table-lamp.” Aiba hummed before stumbling with the chair and dropping something from the desk. A week light lit everything and Sho turned away from it with a growl.

The pill was on the bed just where Aiba had been sitting a moment ago. Sho let his visitor to put the pill in his mouth and then give him the water. He wanted to engrave, sear the image of his neighbor’s serious face in his memory. The way he concentrated while taking care of him. The way his bangs fell on his face, and his hands grazed him as he pulled the blanket to his chest. He wanted to swallow it all with his eyes and keep it deep in his soul for eternity.

“I’m sorry, I wanted to see you. My mother told me you weren’t good.” Aiba said, still trying to keep his chipy voice under control. His hands still trying to sooth the sheets and blankets on Sho’s bed. “I waited for you on Sunday. I even prepared mapo tofu. Nino came by but he wouldn’t eat it…” He talked.

And talked. Sho began to wish he moved more, that he would lean over him once more or that he would lie next to him. But he didn’t. He just kept talking about all the people they knew. Telling him gossip he didn’t care about. The feelings he had for the other man were being stirred by his heartwarming smile. It stormed in his chest, making him dizzy. Then he thought about the last couple of letters he had written for him. And how they’d burn like the thousands he had written before. And how his feelings never got consumed with the fire as his words were. He made a decision right then.

“Aiba-kun?”Sho felt the need to stop him. The need to stop his heart from breaking once again. The debilitating headache not helping him to think straight.

“Does it hurt?” He asked overstressing, pulling the sheets over me again.

“Not so bad. Please open the desk drawer.” His neighbor hesitated as he stood up and walked to the desk. His hand wandered towards the first drawer. “The last one… yes, that’s it. Open it.”

“The notebook?.Jama-butsu?” He asked pulling the ragged notebook from the drawer.

“No, leave that in there…” Sho panicked, he wasn’t sure his novel was worthy enough to be read yet. “They must be in the middle drawer. Yeah… look there.”

“What am I looking for…” Aiba’s voice was starting to sound annoyed, yet the fake concern still tried to mask it. “It’ll be easier for me to bring it to you…”

“It’s not for me… it’s for you.”

“What? These letters?” his voice turned sickly-sweet. It had been obvious that he was starting to understand what this was all about. And he was enjoying it. He enjoyed having power over poor, ill Sho.

“Yes, they’re yours… I mean, for you.” Sho managed to say. But sleep was beginning to cloud his mind, it happened a lot since the headache began.

“Can I read them?” Aiba said in a high-pitched (although quiet) voice. “Here? Now?” He didn’t wait for an answer. He pulled the desk chair, pointed the lamp in his direction, and pulled the first letter out. Already sure that Sho wouldn’t say no.

Deep down, Sho was liking this. To imagine Aiba reading that line Sho knew so well, since this was like the 4th version of that particular letter. To trace the effects on his face as he continued reading. His modesty, his joy, the nudity Sho managed to provoke, showed through tiny changes in his expression.

While he read, Sho felt how sleep wasn’t holding back anymore. How it was crawling up his body, shutting him down a little at a time. He fought it wanting to look at his love a little more.

“It’s so… so… cute!” Aiba jumped out of the chair and bounced through the room kneeling down on the bed with a smile that was almost blinding. “I don’t understand why you didn’t give them to me before!” He continued and the mattress shaking helped him to keep his eyes open. His hand landed on Sho’s face. “You weren’t going to give them to me, were you? …well they’re not yours anymore… there’s a law, I think in England or maybe all over the world. It says the owner of the letters is not the one who writes them but the one receiving them, did you know?” Aiba wiggled some more before continuing. “And these are mine now. MINE. Forever.”

Sho’s eyes closed shut, and he wondered if Aiba really received them, since they didn’t have stamps or postmark. He wondered if he could claim those back. He was hanging to his consciousness by a thread. Then he felt the soft pair of lips press against the corner of his mouth, just moist enough to sparkle something in his lower half. And then his light was turned off and Aiba was gone.

The last thought that passed through Sho’s head was how that kiss was just a reward. Like a treat you give a dog for sitting and giving you the hand. The son of a bitch had just rewarded him. Then he fell over the chasm of sleep.

 

 

 

**8**

  
Between the times when I could remain awake, I couldn’t help but play the memory of Aiba in my room. Sitting on my bed, reading my (his) letters. About the thing or two I could remember him saying. They were all very imprecise and vague.

It was just so improbable for him to visit me. It just seemed so not him, not the idea I had of him anyway, or the things I thought about him. But really, I didn’t know much about him after I left for college, he had changed so much. He liked being elusive now; avoiding everything about us both being alone unless he was drunk. I just couldn’t understand the memory. But it was undeniably there. And his smell had been there too. Who could have told him I was sick? Satoshi?Haruka?

I remembered and ran to my desk. I looked for the letters, but they were all gone. Aiba Masaki had been there, stealing my stuff. “There’s a law, I think in England or maybe all over the world. It says the owner of the letters is not who writes them but the one receiving them, did you know?” I thought about that sentence a lot, chanted it in my sleepy mind, like some kind of mantra that helped me sleep. When I woke up again, I decided to ask someone if it had really happened.

I got up from bed, I could hear Haruka doing something in the kitchen. So I went there. She gasped when she saw me.

“Oh my… Can I help you with something? Satoshi-san asked me to bring you lunch, it’s almost ready.” She said really quickly turning her attention to the stove.

I asked her for water and sat on a stool. “Did Aiba-kun come over yesterday?”

“The neighbor’s son?” She asked, intrigued. I nodded. “Yes he came by, but it wasn’t yesterday, it was the day before.”

“Why did he come? How did he know?”

“I-I don’t know.”

“Did Satoshi call him?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him much, since he’s taking two shifts to pay for the medical bills. Do you want me to ask him?”

“No, I’ll ask him myself when he’s home.” I played with the water left in my glass for a moment before asking, “What time did he come?”

“Around noon, since Satoshi-san wasn’t here I made him wait, but then he began messing with the stuff I already cleaned so I let him go to your room, I Told Satoshi-san I was…”

“Did you tell him? To nii-chan?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing, he just laughed.”

I was embarrassed. I imagined Satoshi and Haruka laughing at me. Laughing at Aiba-chan in my room. Haruka didn’t say anything else; she put a plate of food in front of me and went away. I ate. Probably my first meal at the table since the migraine caught me. After noon, the pain was a little worse and the exhaustion put me to bed again.

I hated this, being partially awake, partially asleep. Unable to get up and at least write something. This illness was consuming me. Taking away everything I used to do to take my mind off Aiba-chan. All I could do in that altered state of consciousness was think about him, I couldn’t shake him out of my mind.

I wondered if Aiba thought about me, if he felt something for me or if he was only curious every time we kissed. Sometimes I wondered if Aiba suspected how I suffered for him. When you love you inevitably think the other one is taking advantage of you. The other one might (or might not) know what’s going on, but that’s not for the lover to know. And that’s how love Is, a rapid descent to the pure feces of hell, where everything hurts and stings, everything is doubtful, ambivalent, possible. The wounds appear by themselves and we only make them worse, even if we don’t notice. The ones who love peel their own flesh happily to their bone, to expose themselves. Loving someone then is obscene, impolite toward others; something dirty that scandalizes people or makes them shed tears. But it is just the one who loves who is lowly. The loved one becomes inversely more refined, he grows. The loved ones are precious, the lovers, pigs. Aiba doesn’t know. He lives unconsciously refining himself, for his own good, for his ego. He does not love but is loved. Like I love him right now. And the loved ones do that, ascend. While the ones who love descend to a whirling spiral of humiliation, cold outbursts, masturbation. A kind of hell where they live by themselves, reveling in their filth, in their inability to move on. The ones who love don’t care, they enjoy suffering and loving… The loved one is sublime, superb. The one who loves is coarse and profane. Aiba’s the loved one. And me, Sakurai Sho, the pig, who loves him.

This was like having a fever I could not escape. Like a river of thoughts ramming through my head and I was feeling delirious. I wasn’t, at least I believed I wasn't. Even though I couldn’t really sleep anymore, I wasn’t sure I was awake. Always brooding about Aiba and how he felt about me now he knew.

It was in one of these endless afternoons when I started feeling hot, and needy. I found myself being helped with it.

“Aiba-chan?” I tried, unsure if it was a dream or what.

“Shh…” was the answer I heard, and I struggled to open my eyes. The only thing I could actually do was to moan as the fingers closed tighter around my cock. Then the pace quickened, my hips bucked against the hand.

“Masaki?”I tried once more. In my dreams Aiba always answered me. At least touched me more. I tried to open my eyes again, and this time, I was more successful. I was able to make out a silhouette sitting on the same chair Aiba sat the last time. It wasn’t as tall as him; the back wasn’t broad like his. The hand jerking me off sped up again, and I came soiling the pajama bottoms and sheets.

When I finally could open my eyes, I saw the blue cleaning company uniform as the door closed. So the obsessive current of thoughts drifted from my previous musings to new ones. The doubt regarding whether Aiba was ever in this room and if I ever gave him the letters filled me instead. I looked for the letters in the usual drawer again. They still weren’t there. Could it be that Haruka took them?

I tried to make sense of everything. Maybe Satoshi laughed when Haruka had shown him my letters, and it made me more embarrassed than before.

 

 

 

**9**

  
It was early morning when he woke up. He could hear Satoshi getting his fishing gear ready in the living room, then the door opened and Nishikido(-sensei)’s voice floated, sickly-sweet, impossibly loud as he addressed his brother. They both went out as he almost fell asleep again. His brain still played the images it had built for his torture: Haruka entering his room, putting the pill in his mouth, laughing. She’d say “There’s a law, I think in England or maybe all over the world…” now every time the phrase replayed in his mind it was in her mellow, stupid girlish voice instead of Aiba’s raspy, manly one. And it filled him with spite. It made a hell lot more sense that Haruka had stolen the letters than Aiba being in his room, giggling and kissing him. He felt stupid and nauseous.

He fell on bed again, the thoughts reviving his headache. He sought the solace of sleep, finding it even in his troubled state.

The usual cleaning sounds came to his ears, and he perked up on the bed. He hadn’t felt this lucid since the migraine started.

Sho hadn’t thought it through, it was just an idea he got hearing the vacuum cleaner go back and forth on the living room’s carpet. He called her, and apparently she left the vacuum cleaner on because Sho could hear it even as she entered the bedroom. “Change my sheets please?” he asked her and she nodded. Her head was down the entire time she was doing what she had been asked to. She hid the stain she had provoked the day before as her face blushed.

When she was done Sho sat down on the mattress and patted the spot next to him indicating her to be seated. She complied without hesitation, as her hands twisted in her lap, but still didn’t look at him. Sho cleared up his throat and her eyes looked up, but didn’t meet his. It was like looking at a doll, the kind of dummies ventriloquists use in their acts. Her skin looked ashen and spent, as if she had been put away in a drawer for years.

Sho reached forward and his hands closed around her throat. “I’m going to strangle you now.” He said quietly. Her eyes met his now. She didn’t move though, her eyes seemed dead already. Then the realization hit Sho: Haruka wasn’t in love. Her existence was innocuous, aseptic. Life and death, right then seemed too alike. They seemed like plain states of being. Since she didn’t love, she wasn’t anything but a mere existence. So her death meant nothing. Sho himself was in love. And it sometimes it felt like mere existence was impossible, when Aiba was sometimes in the room, it even breathing became difficult. He also understood why the maid had to die. She had to be consumed by the passion so that Sho himself wouldn’t be consumed or take it out on Masaki.

“Masaki…” The name rolled sweetly on his tongue as he started constricting his hands around her neck. He had never said it out loud but he liked the ring it had in his mind. Pushing her to the mattress, he straddled her petite body to use his own weight to be able to strangle her well. She didn’t put up a fight. She didn’t even lift her hands to push him away. It seemed she was resigned to her destiny. As if she knew why this was happening. Her feet and hands shook, it reminded him of that movie, the one with the kid who killed his father; they shook in the same manner as they stilled.

Then she stopped moving altogether. Her empty stare lost somewhere behind his head. Sho leaned forward getting close enough to kiss her, but he didn’t, he just listened intently so he could hear her breathing.

When he was sure there wasn’t any more life in her body, he sat up looking at her even pale skin. Something akin to panic crawled along his skin. Yet somehow it wasn’t. He didn’t feel guilty. And he was pretty confident he could avoid authorities if he really set his mind to it. He had been top of his class after all. Sho decided to put her body under the bed until he could get rid of her.

 

 

 

 

**10**

  
I didn’t realize when I fell asleep after Haruka’s murder. My body felt heavy as I made my way to the bathroom. The apartment seemed suspended in time, the yellow light from the fading afternoon floated through the air. Satoshi wasn’t around yet, so I shook the sleepiness away and walked in the shower, shaved my unkempt facial hair, brushed my teeth. I was getting dressed when I heard the knocks on the front door. They were so faint and indecisive that I almost thought I had imagined it until I heard them again. I walked zipping up my pants and running my fingers through my wet hair.

Aiba stood in the doorway with a shy smile. It was obligatory smile, directed to no-one. I made him come in. We went to my bedroom since the living room was inhabitable now that Satoshi had taken a keen interest towards working with clay.

“I had come to visit…” He said as we walked into the bedroom

“I know.” I said as I signaled towards the bed, so Aiba sat there. I chose to sit on the desk chair.

“You remember?”

“Not at first, Haruka told me.”

“Is she here?” I just shook my head. “You were sick, maybe I shouldn’t have come.”

“It’s good, thank you for coming”

“I ran into Satoshi-kun, he told me.”

“Did he invite you?”

“No I wanted to come.” Aiba’s eyes wandered around awkwardly. I just kept looking directly at him. “Where is Satoshi-kun?”

“I dunno, I guess he’s coming later. I think he went fishing today” Silence hung over us for a bit before he spoke again.

“Um… Thanks for the letters, I read them all… actually I came to say -I didn’t really know…” He stopped talking and his eyes were fixed on my desk, “What is Jama-Butsu? I won’t tell anyone, Sho-chan I promise.”

I didn’t answer, getting drawn into his movements, the nervous tic of his mouth as he tried to smile but wasn’t quite there yet. Drawn towards his body, the way it invaded my bed and the bedspread wrinkled around his butt. It was almost as if it were two different things, Aiba-chan and his body. The representation of Aiba and the invasion his body made in the world. I just kept listening to him. He tried to explain what he felt when he read the stupid letters, the thing that he didn’t really know… I examined his body with my intuition (as a weapon). My eyes prowled around him slowly, without him noticing it. His lips started to tremble as he spoke and his cheeks became darker with flush. I rolled the desk chair closer to him and put my hand over his. He didn’t pull away, he held me back. For a moment I forgot there was a soul living in there as I heard his faltering breath. He was only a body, warm and steadfast in front of me. Then I pushed myself to remember, to know him again, and to acknowledge him as a person again. And my body seemed to like it, the closeness of his, with the heart pounding against its ribcage.

I saw myself lift my other hand and touch his face to make him look at me. I saw Sho pushing I see him on the bed, lay him down, and undress him on the mattress above the dead body that motivated Sho to do this. He gasped and let Sho have his way with him on the bed. Sho and Masaki loved each other then. Sho and Masaki would stop loving each other. Because they couldn’t love for ever, that’s love.

 

 

 

**11**

  
Sho and Masaki had loved each other, and immediately after loving each other, they stopped loving each other forever. Both statements were the truth and perfectly reconcilable. If someone were to ask Aiba Masaki if he loved Sakurai Sho, he’d answer that he did, that afternoon he did. So would Sho.

When his brother was back with Nishikido(-sensei) Masaki had left like an automaton. Sho started to get his stuff ready for the trip. He couldn’t stay and let them find out Haruka’s body decaying under his bed. He would run. So he started to stuff the things he thought he would need in a duffel bag. When he came across the shabby notebook with the unfinished novel about a scribbler named Jun, he thought now was his chance to finish it at last. He needed to give it closure now.

When he was done, he kneeled inside his closet and trained his eye to the peephole. The sight that greeted Sho surprised him. It wasn’t Nishikido(-sensei) in the adjacent room with Satoshi. It was someone tall and slim, yet muscular.

Sho wasn’t intrigued by what was going to happen, after all Satoshi was waiting for the man on the bed, wearing only his briefs. What intrigued Sho was the face of the stranger. When the pants fell to the floor and he stepped out of them, he sat on the edge of the bed, and Sho recognized his face as he pulled his socks off, and Satoshi wrapped him in his arms: He was Toma’s spitting image, from the cutesy smile to the slightly crooked nose.

Everything else was like it never happened. He had fallen asleep between the racks and suspended clothes. He tried to look into the next bedroom again, but he couldn’t find either Satoshi or the mysterious man. He couldn’t hear them anywhere in the 2LDK either. He exited from the closet and stretched himself before lying on the bed and drifting to sleep.

Early in the morning, when the city was awakening, he pulled the duffel bag strap over his shoulder and walked silently towards the door of the apartment that had been his home for most of his life. Now that his love for Masaki had finally consumed itself, it wasn’t home anymore… Sho could hear Satoshi’s soft snoring and he felt a bit guilty about leaving him with the problem of Haruka’s corpse. Then he remembered his older brother already had someone to take care of him, so he just closed the door behind him and didn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> The obstacles is the book I was most influenced as a teen, I think I read it while I was like 16 and it completely changed my view on relationships (which by the time was totally naive xD) and I think to date is the book that has most influenced my style of writing, that's why I'd hope it'd be mostly my style but also somebody else's, Eloy Urroz.
> 
> Writing this was very hard XD it made me cry, especially the bits... In the end I think I chose Toma instead of someone inside Arashi because I couldn't "kill" Arashi, and he's adorable xD
> 
> In the original work both Aiba and Ohno's characters were female, so I'm hoping that didn't come through at the end. Also in the original Ohno's character was Sho's character Mother, and Sho's and Aiba's characters were 17 I'm hoping they didn't seem too immature either xD
> 
> Sooo~ Next Author is Motoni Modoru she's a yaoi mangaka and she's amazing, if yaoi is your thing and you haven't read her, what are you waiting? :P the pairing is Matsumiya :D I'm posting the requests made here before that though. I'm almost done with the first, but mistress has been a bitch xD you'll see, since i really expect to finish it this week.


End file.
